Counting the days
by Yessi
Summary: Ryan, numbers, sheets of paper and almost three years with the Cohens. Oneshot.


**Title **- Counting the days

**By **- Yessi 

**Rating **- K

**Beta **- loracj2. Thanks again for your hard work!

**Disclaimer **- I don't own any of it.

**Story **- Ryan, numbers, sheets of paper and almost three years with the Cohens.

**A/N **- Thanks to Katwoman76 and Anne36/O.C. Annie for your input and encouragement!

* * *

**Counting the days**

When Ryan's mother had left him, when she waved at him and walked away to a waiting cab, he had started counting the days until he would be eighteen.

As glad as he was to be allowed to stay with this new family – it was certainly better then juvie or a foster home or the streets – he counted the days until he would be free to live wherever and however he wanted to.

It made the situation more bearable somehow. Knowing that it wasn't forever, whatever „it" was. Good or bad; things were so new and uncertain, it made him feel better knowing how long this arrangement would last.

He could see the future and his freedom; it made it easier to deal somehow as he felt like he was in control of it.

So when Ryan retreated to the poolhouse the night his mother left him with the Cohens, he took a sheet of paper and one of his lawyer's unbelievably fancy pens and counted the days, calculating carefully, considering the leap year.

About two and a half years to go. He wrote down the numbers from 943 to 1. With his neat, rather small writing, it took three pages. Three pages full of tiny ciphers.

That looked like a lot. An awful lot of time, in particular if you had no idea what these days would bring. He took a deep breath and felt relieved when crossing out number 943. Only 942 more days to go.

Number 943 went pretty okay actually. Confusing but okay. Maybe he could do this – though 942 was a still huge number, but by taking it day by day it might work. And after all, 942 was less then 943.

-------------------

In the following weeks, Ryan tried to figure out what was expected from him. How to act, what to say, what not to do.

He learned a lot, and he was glad that he had always been a fast learner. How to waltz. How to ask your girlfriend out. How to shop for comic books. How to react to Newpsies flirting with you, to parental figures caring for you and about you. And at the end of each day, he crossed another number out of his calendar.

Some days he felt ok when he drew the two lines because it had been a good day. A day when he felt he had learned, like it was ok to be a kid sometimes, or that people will help you if you ask. That it was actually worth trusting people.

Even if there were so many more days to go before he could make his own choices, it seemed bearable when he had a good day, made the time seem shorter. He crossed out these days carefully, almost tenderly, as if to show his gratitude towards them.

Then he would be counting how many days he already had crossed out, and think that it hadn't been too hard. Confusing as hell and exhausting, yes, but still he had managed to survive ten, thirty, ninety of them without breaking.

On other days, the crappy ones, he didn't feel as optimistic. For lots of reasons; he didn't act appropriately, his girlfriend's actions were confusing, guys at school hated him.

He missed home, missed his friends, missed his mom and more than anything, missed a life that he could live and understand without thinking too hard.

On these days it felt even better to cross another number out, and he did it forcefully, not caring if the lines were getting too long.

He wouldn't count the days he had survived, but those that still had to pass before he could turn his back on the expectations and rules, and just be himself again, whoever that might be.

Sometimes he was frustrated because the numbers seemed to decrease so slowly, but most of the time it helped to manage by calculating them, breaking them down to weeks or months.

When his brother almost got him killed in Chino, there were still more then 800 days to go.

When he was grounded for the first time in his life because of that jackass Oliver, he crossed number 722 out with such a force that the paper ripped.

-----

Ryan left the calendar in Newport when he moved back to Theresa's to take care of their baby. Or someone else's baby. He left it in the drawer on purpose, hidden beneath school stuff that he was sure he would never use in Chino.

He had crossed out every day during his stay with the Cohens, one sheet of paper was filled, one day after the other, some with anger, some with happiness.

He felt strangely sad that now that he wouldn't need to cross out the numbers on the other two papers that he had prepared on his first day. It had become a routine, something to do just before he closed his eyes.

He didn't want to think about what the other two sheets full of numbers might have brought him, but couldn't get himself to destroy them, as he felt that by ripping or burning the papers, he would destroy the days and everything they might bring as well.

If he was honest with himself, most of the crossed out numbers represented good things happening, so there was no point in tempting fate.

-------------------

When he returned to Newport, he went to the drawer after he finally shooed Seth out of the poolhouse. He should have been more amazed by the fact that nothing had been touched, that everything was still where he left it, waiting for him.

It took him almost an hour to cross out the 97 numbers he had missed, trying to remember every single day before setting the two lines.

He was exhausted when he finished, unable to understand why it made him sad. Maybe it was because most of the 97 numbers were angry lines.

He couldn't shake the feeling that he himself was responsible for that anger. With a different decision, a different directon, those 97 days could have been much less angry.

Time with the Cohens was precious, he realized, when he noted the numbers on the first sheet. He never hadn't noticed before how many were crossed out accurately, carefully.

Ryan was determined not to waste timelike he had with the past those 97 days.

-------------------

Ryan barely realized how the time flew by.

He was still trying to cross out every single day in his calendar, but sometimes he simply forgot. He didn't think about it much anymore – either the days passed or the days to come until he turned eightteen.

He would remember his calendar every once in a while, maybe after a week or two had passed; but he was busy with his life; school, Lindsay, Marissa, Seth, Summer, with all the drama that surrounded them. He barely found the time to update it, but it didn't seem to matter.

Sometimes he would remember and hastily cross out the missed numbers; other times he would just cross out the day that had just passed.

The afternoon that Kirsten left, he remembered his calendar for the first time in weeks.

He had 305 days left. That night he couldn't cross the number out, because he didn't sleep in the poolhouse but in the hospital. As soon as he was back home again, he started counting the days regularily, each night, before going to bed. Just like before.

304, 303, 302 days left.

When the days were over, they would let him go happily, having realized that he was screwing up their family. But this time he wasn't so sure he was looking forward to this day anymore.

When it were only 301, 300, 299 days left, he stared at the digit „2" for almost an hour, thinking how his live would change again, rapidly and soon. Maybe too soon.

Less then 300 days to go, more than two sheets of paper already filled, only one more to go. It didn't seem like an awful lot of time anymore.

Trey left, and the cross that marked number 221 was the shakiest one he'd ever drawn.

For the first time since he had started his countdown, he wasn't so sure that everything would change once he had crossed the last number. He sat on the bed, staring at the sheet and reflecting about that day.

Sandy hadn't given up on him, he realized. Despite everything, he was still there for him, steady and reliable. Ryan had screwed up badly, endangered the whole family by bringing Trey in, and yet Sandy didn't treat him like outcast, like a troublesome chore that he had signed up for and now regretted.

Instead he held him. Comforted him. Reassured him. He had turned to someone instead of hiding, and Sandy had been there for him.

He sensed that maybe they would still want him around after that last day had been crossed out ... and that he might actually want to stay, or at least keep in touch with them. Maybe.

-------------------

Kirsten came home when day number 211 was crossed.

Ryan was paying much more attention and respect to every cross he set now. Things had changed: he didn't feel relieved anymore when he set the two lines to mark that yet another day has passed.

It didn't help like it did before, he wasn't feeling in control by doing so, on good or bad days.

On the contrary. No matter how pissed off he might have been during the day, as soon as he ended the day with his list before going to bed, he became more and more aware of one thing.

He liked it there. In Newport. With the Cohens. He didn't want to count the days anymore, since he didn't want this time to end.

He had changed considerably since he had started his count, but he realized that he was also still himself; a less angry and less lonely self – and he had to admit that he liked it.

Sure, nothing was perfect.

Girl problems, Sandy and Kirsten being too wrapped up in themselves to notice what else might be happening, Seth being Seth (enough said) but this was his life.

By looking at his sheets filled with numbers, counting the days that had passed and those still to come, he felt more and more melancholy, trying his best to make the days go by slower.

But it didn't work. The days were flying by faster and faster, and before he knew it, he was crossing day number 100.

Ryan now realized that his new life wouldn't come to an abrupt end when he turned 18, as he had originally assumed when began his counting.

The Cohens were talking about final exams and graduation yet again, and Ryan was thrilled to find out that graduation day was exactly 100 days after his 18th birthday.

One day when Kirsten and Sandy were talking about graduation, yet again, about how much they would deserve seats in the front row because they were having two kids graduating, even two of the smartest kids in the class, he took all his courage and scribbled small „One"s in front of the 99 numbers that he hadn't scratched out yet, adding another sheet of paper for the new ones and feeling oddly relieved afterwards.

His birthday came and went, and once more he headed for the now dreaded zero at the end of page four.

But Sandy and Kirsten were talking about colleges, taking an interest in his applications and making it clear every day that they weren't about to let him go.

When his acceptance letter from Berkeley came, Sandy was smiling for days like a kid at Christmas for days, calling him a „second generation Berkeley man", trying to arrange his old dorm room for him.

Ryan thought he had never felt such honor before as when Sandy gave him his vintage Berkeley sweater. No soccer trophy or A on a test had ever made him feel so pleased and proud as this worn out heirloom gift.

Thoughts crept into Ryan's mind every so often when he scatched out another day; what if nothing will change? What if it really is forever? What if „day zero" was just marking the end of his time at Harbour, but not the end of his time with the Cohens?

After Kirsten had insisted that he go see his mother to invite her to graduation, he breathed a bit easier.

It took him a painfully long time to cross out the days he spent in Albuquerque, but afterwards he felt better. He had dealt with someone from his old life, and yet his new life didn't burst like a bubble. It was still there with open arms when he returned.

Not that he had expected the Cohens to throw him out after he told him that Dawn was doing well.

But he also didn't expect Sandy to remind him that Dawn being okay didn't mean they would ever let him go.

Or Kirsten to hug him for an eternity when he returned home, quizzing him for the whole next day about how his trip had been and how Dawn was doing, in the end telling him only half-jokingly that this was all great as long as it wouldn't mean that they were losing him.

He finally reached the point where he could accept his new life.

Apparently, the Cohens wanted him back, even if he was 18 and his mother wasn't missing in action anymore. Maybe both worlds could exist side by side.

He could cross out the remaining numbers much more calmly now.

-------------------

Graduation day finally arrived, and it was already late at night when Ryan pulled the sheets of paper from the hiding place under his bed.

He looked at all the angry lines and precise crosses again, remembering how this was his anchor in the first months with the Cohens.

It seemed silly now, looking back.

That he actually had longed for the final day of his stay in Newport.

That whenever he felt lost or scared, he hadn't even thought of confiding in someone; instead he had calculated how many more days would pass before he could lose that feeling.

Back then, he counted with eagerness the days left; as time went by, the reverse was true.

He was also a bit proud of himself that he had managed to get past that, to fight it with the help of the numbers, to finally be able to go to bed looking forward to the next day and not dreading it.

To accept his place in this new family.

To accept that this life wasn't a new life anymore but simply his life.

-------------------

He didn't hear Sandy knocking on the pool-house door that night, coming in and asking a now so familiar „How you doing, kid?", followed by a curious glance toward the papers that were now almost three years old, filled of scribbled numbers and line in various colors.

For a second Ryan thought about stuffing them under the bed out of Sandy's view, but then decided that it would be worth trying to share.

So he held them out to Sandy who took them wordlessly and sat down beside him on the bed.

He didn't have much explaining to do – it turned out that the man really knew him inside out by now, and instantly caught on what the numbers represented.

Just as so many times before, there was this special connection between them, and Ryan wasn't even surprised when Sandy told him that he had done the same when had left the Bronx for California. He stopped crossind out the days when he proposed to Kirsten, and accepted his new live for good.

They spend the next hours sitting side by side, talking about the numbers and the events they stood for.

Sandy pointed out some of the numbers that were marked with angry lines, and he and Ryan recalled things that had happened on those days. Some of the events Sandy knew of, others took him by surprise.

Putting an arm around Ryan's shoulder, he admitted that it made him wonder how much more he must have missed in Ryan's live.

Ryan had missed these quiet talks – the last one must have been somewhere around the beginning of page three in his calendar – but the sincere words that were exchanged that night made up for some of it.

With both men still silently reflecting about how much had happened and changed since Ryan had started counting the days – how much had happened and still stayed the same – the boy barely noticed that Sandy was continuing to regard the sheets with the 1043 numbers in his hand again, his gaze shifting to Ryan ever so often.

Ryan was lost in his own thoughts, realizing that the day he had counted down to since 1043 days, the day he had dreaded and longed for, was finally there.

And it wouldn't bring any change at all. He would still be safe, protected and loved the next day. Whatever the next day, week or year would bring, he now knew with certainty that his life had settled in.

He would always have a number to call, people to come to, a home to return to.

After a long day, a long week, long and yet so short 1043 days, Ryan drifted off to sleep, his head slumping to Sandy's shoulder.

He heard the older man whisper „Get some sleep, son, tomorrow's a new day", as he pulled him closer to squeeze his shoulder before he moved to allow Ryan to lie down.

The last thing Ryan remembered thinking was that he didn't need to count the days anymore. He could just live them.


End file.
